href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@42576@[email protected]#Page_91" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">91, making flat webs on grass or in corners of houses, with a tube at one side in which the spider lives; (2) the Therididæ (p. 107), round spiders with flat or irregular webs in corners and on plants; (3) the Linyphiadæ (p. 134), with flat webs, small spiders of a great number of species living near the ground and in shady places; (4) the Epeiridæ (p. 154), the round web spiders; (5) the Cribellata, having a calamistrum (see p. 205) on the hind legs and making rough webs that gather dust.

Cobwebs are of four principal kinds:

1. The flat webs, closely woven of long threads crossed by finer ones in all directions and connected with a tubular nest where the spider hides, and from which it runs out on the upper side of the web after insects that may fall upon it. These are made by Agalena and Tegenaria (pp. 91 to 104).

2. The net-like webs, made of smooth threads in large meshes, sometimes in a flat or curved sheet held out by threads in all directions. The spider lives on the under side, back downward. These are made by Therididæ and Linyphiadæ (pp. 107, 134).

3. The round webs, made of threads radiating from a common center and crossed by circular loops and spirals, part of which are adhesive.

4. The webs of the Ciniflonidæ, composed in part of loose bands of silk (p. 205).

The simplest and best way to preserve spiders for examination is to put them in alcohol. It kills them immediately and keeps their form and markings and, to a great extent, their colors. They may be kept alive for a few days in glass bottles or jars. It is not necessary to make holes in the covers, or to feed the spiders often. They need water, and this can be furnished them conveniently by putting a piece of wet paper or rag in the bottle.

If one wishes to find what spiders live in his neighborhood, they must be looked for at all times and in all kinds of places. The house and cellar should be looked over and the spiders watched until they are fully grown. The outside of the house and fences should be looked over occasionally in the same way, only those spiders being taken that are full grown, unless they are of new or rare kinds. A great many spiders may be found on the garden fences of a shady street, especially in the early summer and again in the autumn. At both seasons they are more active in the middle of the day and more likely then to be wandering about. The writer always carries two small bottles, one a common homeopathic medicine vial, holding one or two drams and half full of alcohol, the other a straight tube vial, without any neck and about the same size, that is kept always dry and occasionally wiped out to remove the threads that are made in it. The dry bottle is placed quickly over the spider and moved about until the spider is coaxed to go into it. The bottle is then turned up and closed with a finger until the other bottle can be uncorked and the spider shaken into the alcohol. In the fields and along the country roads the stones and sticks that have been lying for some time on the ground should be carefully lifted and searched, both on the under surface and on the ground below. The stones and sticks should be turned back into the same places so that other spiders may find at once comfortable places to hide under. If they are dropped on new ground, it may be a year before they are fit to use again. Among trees and shrubs the best things are to be found by moving slowly about and watching for spiders, nests, and cobwebs without disturbing them. The webs can be best seen when moving toward the light. The greatest number of spiders can usually be found along paths and the edges of woods, and paths through the woods are the best places for many ground spiders.

Spiders should be looked for in the same way in grass, by creeping along on the ground or by sitting down and watching until something walks into view; or the grass and weeds may be swept with a cotton bag, fastened on a hoop like a dip net, with a short handle, and the spiders picked out with a dry bottle from among the leaves and insects that will be gathered with them. Bushes may be swept in the same way, or may be shaken over an open umbrella, or a piece of cloth or paper. In winter, when spiders are torpid, great numbers can be found by sifting the dead leaves that have been lying for some years in the woods. A common coal sieve is fine enough to hold the leaves while the spiders and sticks and dirt pass through, and may be picked over on a cloth or carried home in a bag and examined in the house. The sifting should be repeated several times, as many of the spiders hold to threads among the leaves and become loosened only after much shaking.

In the following pages a general description is given of each family, followed by descriptions of the species belonging to it, with a figure of each species placed as near as possible to the description. In some cases, where the genera are large and well defined, separate descriptions are given of each genus, but where the genus is not easy to distinguish or represented by only a few species, there is no separate generic description, and the species are placed next to those of other genera to which they are most closely related. If the names of spiders are known, they can readily be found by the index at the end of the book. If information is sought about an unknown spider, the illustrations through the book furnish the most convenient index, as the general form and proportions of spiders and the arrangement of their eyes usually show to what family they belong. The ground spiders and those without cobwebs are described first, and the sedentary species living in webs in the last half of the book. Readers unfamiliar with the subject are advised to read first the descriptions of the families and compare with them the spiders that they find in their own neighborhoods. The figures are in most cases enlarged for the sake of distinctness, and spiders of much smaller size must be looked for.

THE COMMON SPIDERS

THE DRASSIDÆ

The Drassidæ, like the Lycosidæ (p. 67), are ground spiders, though some genera, like Anyphæna (p. 12) and Clubiona (p.